Re: [PATCH v1 1/2] mm: Implement memory-deny-write-execute as a prctl

From: Topi Miettinen
Date: Sat Nov 12 2022 - 01:11:35 EST


On 10.11.2022 14.03, Catalin Marinas wrote:
On Thu, Nov 10, 2022 at 11:27:14AM +0000, Joey Gouly wrote:
On Fri, Oct 28, 2022 at 11:51:00AM -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 04:04:56PM +0100, Joey Gouly wrote:
diff --git a/mm/mmap.c b/mm/mmap.c
index 099468aee4d8..42eaf6683216 100644
--- a/mm/mmap.c
+++ b/mm/mmap.c
@@ -1409,6 +1409,9 @@ unsigned long do_mmap(struct file *file, unsigned long addr,
vm_flags |= VM_NORESERVE;
}
+ if (map_deny_write_exec(NULL, vm_flags))
+ return -EACCES;
+

This seems like the wrong place to do the check -- that the vma argument
is a hard-coded "NULL" is evidence that something is wrong. Shouldn't
it live in mmap_region()? What happens with MAP_FIXED, when there is
an underlying vma? i.e. an MAP_FIXED will, I think, bypass the intended
check. For example, we had "c" above:

c) mmap(PROT_READ);
mprotect(PROT_READ|PROT_EXEC); // fails

But this would allow another case:

e) addr = mmap(..., PROT_READ, ...);
mmap(addr, ..., PROT_READ | PROT_EXEC, MAP_FIXED, ...); // passes

I can move the check into mmap_region() but it won't fix the MAP_FIXED
example that you showed here.

mmap_region() calls do_mas_munmap(..) which will unmap overlapping regions.
However the `vma` for the 'old' region is not kept around, and a new vma will
be allocated later on "vma = vm_area_alloc(mm);", and the vm_flags are just set
to what is passed into mmap_region(), so map_deny_write_exec(vma, vm_flags)
will just be as good as passing NULL.

It's possible to save the vm_flags from the region that is unmapped, but Catalin
suggested it might be better if that is part of a later extension, what do you
think?

I thought initially we should keep the behaviour close to what systemd
achieves via SECCOMP while only relaxing an mprotect(PROT_EXEC) if the
vma is already executable (i.e. check actual permission change not just
the PROT_* flags).

We could pass the old vm_flags for that region (and maybe drop the vma
pointer entirely, just check old and new vm_flags). But this feels like
tightening slightly systemd's MDWE approach. If user-space doesn't get
confused by this, I'm fine to go with it. Otherwise we can add a new
flag later for this behaviour

I guess that's more of a question for Topi on whether point tightening
point (e) is feasible/desirable.

I think we want 1:1 compatibility with seccomp() for the basic version, so MAP_FIXED shouldn't change the verdict. Later we can introduce more versions (perhaps even less strict, too) when it's requested by configuration, like MemoryDenyWriteExecute=[relaxed | strict].

-Topi